The systems that run websites on the World Wide Web typically use databases, services, and other computing systems that tend be very complex. Typically these systems are tested manually by people and automatically by software that repeatedly performs various actions in an attempt to ensure that things are working correctly. Most testing involves clicking hyperlinks or filling information into forms and submitting to the systems for processing. When this type of activity is performed by software it is commonly referred to as the practice of Quality Assurance Automation (QA Automation).
In e-commerce, websites perform the same functions repeatedly. A user views a product on the website and decided to buy it. The website then receives the user's customer information such as name, address, a tender for payment (e.g., MasterCard, PayPal, or Bill Me Later), a discount code, and an email address where the website can send the order and marketing messages. In total, a website may perform ten tasks. The test would document each of the ten tasks and report the results of the test to the programmer or another person. The test may record the performance of each task each day to compare daily performances over a period of a week or six months or more. Monitoring the performance of each of the ten tasks is important because software changes every day because coders go in and make changes, build new features, or fix bugs. When the coder makes a code change, he may inadvertently break something. It may take days, weeks, maybe even months in the production until someone discovers that a particular code change create a new bug.